Outstanding gov’t debt up to P5.79T

THE OUTSTANDING debt of the national government slightly went up to P5.790 trillion as of April on higher foreign borrowing.

Latest data on the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) website showed that the April figure rose by a mere 0.1 percent from end-March’s P5.787 trillion.

The amount was also 2.7-percent higher than the P5.640 trillion recorded as of end April last year.

Domestic debt as of end-April was at P3.851 trillion, down 0.1 percent month-on-month but up 4.5 percent year-on-year.

According to the BTr, the slight month-on-month decline in domestic liabilities “was the net effect of P3.59-billion net redemption of government securities alongside the P0.32-billion impact of the depreciation of the euro and the US dollar against the peso on multi-currency denominated securities.”

As of end April, domestic debt composed 68 percent of the debt stock, which was “in line with risk management objectives,” the BTr said.

As for the national government’s external debt, it amounted to P1.940 trillion or a 0.4-percent increase month-on-month “due to net availment of P22.71 billion and the appreciation of third currencies against the US dollar that raised the peso value of foreign debt by P5.76 billion.”

It was nonetheless “tempered by the stronger peso, which reduced the value of foreign debt by P21.57 billion.”

The peso strengthened to 44.30:$1 at end-April from 44.80:$1 as of the end of March, the BTr noted.

On a year-on-year basis, external obligations as of April were down 0.7 percent even as an additional P25 billion was borrowed from foreign sources during the first four months of 2015.

In the meantime, the national government’s outstanding guaranteed debt slid by 3.3 percent month-on-month to P401.9 billion last April. The outstanding guaranteed debt of the national government also dipped by faster 14.1 percent year-on-year.